


The Beginning in the End

by anonym_ish



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: M/M, Past Armie Hammer/Elizabeth Chambers - Freeform, The Author Regrets Everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24089167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonym_ish/pseuds/anonym_ish
Summary: So now it’s just the two of them again, as it’s been hundreds, thousands, of times before.  The last night of just the two of them, like this, if the conversation goes the way he means for it to go.“Elizabeth...we need to talk.”
Relationships: Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer
Comments: 6
Kudos: 62





	The Beginning in the End

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first RPF fic ever, and 95% of it was written over a year and a half ago, so read at your own risk! It’s probably not the story I would write today (much kinder to some people than I would be now, and much more hopeful about others than I currently feel), but it’s been lingering in my drafts, haunting me for months, so I’m finally just posting. I hope it makes some kind of sense, and is somewhat enjoyable.
> 
> Disclaimer: The F stands for fiction.

_The Beginning in the End_

_I miss you. Can I say that? I know it sounds crazy, this place is so tiny that we’re practically elbow to elbow when you’re here, but the apartment feels so big and empty without you. I know you’ll be back as soon as you can, or you’ll let me know where and when you can meet. I know that. But I just wanted you to know, with no guilt trip intended, that every moment I’m not with you, I’m missing you. Even if you’re in the other room. Even if you’re almost here. Especially if you’ve just left. I want you to know, to be able to see it spelled out for you, that when we’re together I’m the happiest, luckiest person in existence. And when we’re not...I just want you to know that when we’re apart, no matter how far or how late or how early or how long, that someone is out there, missing you and loving you harder than anything. T._

  
He’s read the email conservatively six hundred times since he’d received it last night. Armie had been missing his boy something fierce and attempting to psych himself up for the conversation that, at this point, was all but a formality, yet harder than hell to initiate. As always, Tim somehow seemed to know exactly what he needed. What would give him the strength to take a sledgehammer to the life he’d spent the last decade cultivating.   
  
He waits until the kids are asleep. Dinner had been a somewhat muted affair - they’d just returned from another movie set, another wrapped project, and the kids had been nearly ready for bed since the minute they’d gotten home. They fed them, pajama-ed them, and brushed their teeth as quickly as possible, trying to avoid when tired became overtired and _just_ managing to do so.  
  
So now it’s just the two of them again, as it’s been hundreds, thousands, of times before. The last night of just the two of them, like this, if the conversation goes the way he means for it to go.  
  
“Elizabeth...we need to talk.”

It’s not that she didn’t see it coming. She’s not a fool, not oblivious to what’s been happening for the last few months, what started nearly four years ago. He hasn’t thrown it in her face, but he’s never been very good at hiding his feelings, not in real life anyway. The way he’s attached at the hip to his phone. The way she’ll walk into a room sometimes and find him huddled in on himself, attention placed squarely on the screen in his hand, soft smile playing across his lips. The weekends away every so often or the extra days tacked on here and there to previously made arrangements. The way his eyes are always red rimmed when he returns. She’s not going to attack him, but she’s also not going to help him end their marriage. “So...talk.”

Armie leans against the kitchen island while Elizabeth is standing stalk straight in the hall. It strikes him instantly as an absurd thought, but he feels like this is a conversation that should be had sitting down. It seems almost cavalier to end a nearly ten year marriage in the same positions in which they’d be discussing who’s handling tomorrow’s carpool - but he already feels like he’s going to throw up. Prolonging this any further, even just to walk over to the dining room, feels like chickening out. 

He clears his throat, straightens, tries desperately to find the words to set this into motion, but everything that comes to mind sounds like a script for how to break up with a high school girlfriend. Every practiced phrase is far too casual for ending a marriage, splitting up a family. He shoots for honesty. ”I have zero idea how to have this conversation. What to say to you to make clear that I respect you, that I care about you, but that this isn’t the right life for me anymore.”

She nods knowingly, _angrily_ , her lips twisting into a grim, humorless smile. “That’s about as passive a statement as you can make, when telling someone you want a divorce. This isn’t the life you _want_ anymore, I think that might be what you meant?” Her voice is calm and all the more cutting for it. “You’d rather play house with him, instead of staying in your _real_ house with your wife and children.” It all comes tumbling out at once, and she winces internally. She hadn’t planned on reacting so honestly, on giving so much away in one go. Still, nothing that she said is untrue and they both know it.

He squares his shoulders, rising up to counter her. “Elizabeth, we haven’t been happy in a long time, neither one of us. Don’t pretend that’s not a fact. With or without him, this isn’t working anymore.”

”That’s a pretty bold claim,” she scoffs, “considering we haven’t been _without_ him in over three years.”

His voice raises slightly, “This was always going to happen, Elizabeth. I didn’t mean to -”

“To fly across the country just to spend time with him? To invite him to move in with us instead of letting the studio put him up? Maybe you weren’t looking to fall in love with him, but you definitely didn’t try _not_ to.”

Armie shakes his head, voice tinged with sincerity, willing her to hear him. “The thing is, I did. I did try not to fall in love with him. But it happened before I even realized it. It was happening the whole time.” He takes a deep breath, and dives in. Uncomfortable, but aware that this needs to be said, especially if there’s any hope of preventing a bloodbath. “And...I’m sorry. I am. You can believe me, or not believe me, or tell me to go fuck myself. But I’m sorry, and as ridiculous as it might sound in the midst of this conversation, I never wanted to hurt you. But, Elizabeth, we weren’t working before Tim came into the picture, and I think you know that. And maybe we could have stayed married for another ten, or twenty years, pretended things were fine, and let the unhappiness eat away at us until there wasn’t a single good memory left untouched. Or we can do this now. And be sad, or angry, or hurt. But maybe walk away with the ability to salvage something good. Something civil. Some kindness.”

It’s almost a parody of the speech he gave her at the very beginning of their relationship, and it’s the first thing that makes her realize that this is really the end. He’s not wrong, and she’s not stupid. She knows things haven’t been the same between them, haven’t been really good between them, in a while - a long one. But she’s lived a charmed life, one where things usually go as she’s expecting or wants, and the thought that the husband who’d begged her to take a chance on him, spend a lifetime with him, would get tired of her in less than a decade was slightly beyond her imagination and a terrible blow to her pride. He’d loved her once, she’s sure of it. He’d pleaded with her to go out with him, walked around proudly with her on his arm when she’d said yes. But that felt like a lifetime ago now, and she can’t pretend to be shocked by this. Shocked that he’s finally addressing it, finally putting his foot down and making a choice? Yes. Shocked about his feelings, the way, and to whom, they’ve shifted? In the back of her mind she’s known, maybe even before he did.

* * *

It starts out as a joke, a _challenge_. They hadn’t been dating long - a few weeks, maybe a month. They were curled up in his tiny apartment, watching a movie, when he looks down at her and says, “everyone else calls you Elizabeth - I’m gonna call you Liz.” 

She smirks, “you and my _dad_.” 

Armie shudders, his face scrunching up in disgust. “Okay, _not_ Liz. What about Lizzie?”

“My mom.”

“Ellie?”

“My grandparents.”

“Beth.”

“My _other_ grandparents.” 

She’s getting a kick out of this. Of course 90% of the time she’s Elizabeth or, rarely, Liz. Most of these nicknames haven’t been used in over a decade and often sparingly, mostly as a joke, before then. She’s always enjoyed though that the name Elizabeth offers so many natural alternatives because for as long as she can remember she’s felt like a million different things, different people, all wrapped in one. The nicknames felt like identifiers for each of the variations that lived inside of her, each new persona she was trying to slip into. ( _Armie, she learns, has always just been Armie. It somehow encompasses all and none of who he is. It was assigned to him, unchanging, something for him to grow into rather than something that grew out of him_.) 

His voice grows more exasperated. “Libby.”

“Sister.”

“ _Liza_.”

“Brothers.”

“Chambers,” he growls.

“My high school teammates. And also an ex.”

He groans. “There are a million nicknames for Elizabeth, and somehow every single one has been taken, at one point or another, by someone in your life.”

Elizabeth laughs lightly, confused by his determination. “What’s the big deal? I hope this isn’t one of those ‘let’s pretend you didn’t have a life and a past before me’ things.”

“No, that’s not it. I mean, I could call you all of those names, try to make them all mine. I just...I’d like something that’s just ours. Something you’ll only ever hear in my voice. Something special.” His eyes light up. “I’m gonna call you A’s.”

“What does that even mean?”

“A’s. For Armie’s. Because you’re mine.”

Her perfectly manicured eyebrows fly up to her forehead. “ _Excuse me_? You have some ner-“

She’s cut off by a swift kiss, and when he pulls back she doesn’t see the sly grin she’s expecting, but a wide, dopey smile. (He never looks dumber or more beautiful than when he’s in love, she’s learned. A knowledge that will come back to bite her when he's in love with someone who's not her.) “Don’t lose your shit. I’m yours too. You can call me E’s, if you want. It’s one guaranteed thing no one has ever been able to call us before, just ours.”

“No one is going to have a clue what it means, they’ll think we’re crazy if they hear it.”

He shrugs, smile growing, and then pulls her in closer. “Good, it’s not _for_ them.”

* * *

She’s seen the glances. The subtle touches. Registers the flirting. The falling all over themselves to praise the other. She’s not sure when it turned physical, if it happened before shooting, during, after, _way_ after. All she really knows is that she didn’t get good and worried until he started with his caravan of nicknames for Timothée. _Tim. Timmy. Sweet T._ They’d gone on talk shows, podcasts, done press panels, and it seemed like every time a new name had been added to the repertoire. She knew it was a way of trying out different options, finding a way to lay claim to him without being too obvious, without anyone knowing. She’d bet good money that he had a private nickname for him, something she’d never know, something _just theirs_ , but he was a peacock when it came to someone he loved - he wanted to puff out his chest and let the whole world know, and this had been the only way he could. Hiding in plain sight. So yeah, deep down she’s known for awhile. But it doesn’t make it any easier, and it doesn’t mean she’s going down without a fight.

“I want another year.”  
  
He eyes her warily. “Another year...”  
  
Her voice is steady, eyes dry. “I want another year of this, of us. Of the appearances, the content. The pretense.” She can see him start to tense, and continues quickly before he can argue. “Not to...I’m not trying to trick you, or convince you to stay. This wouldn’t be my choice, you know that. I’m not completely oblivious - I’m aware that your heart isn’t in this, not anymore. But the bakery is picking up steam, I’ve been scheduling more television appearances, and my social media sponsorships are really picking up. I know I’m going to lose followers when girls aren’t hoping to catch a glimpse of you anymore. I could use another year to solidify those platforms and my following.” 

He thinks about it, weighs the options. If he wasn’t in love with someone else, if he didn’t have another life he was desperate to begin, a year would be more than fair. Everything that she’s saying is true - most importantly, the success of the bakery is significant to both of them. It’s her baby but he’s been there since the beginning and he knows it’s something she wants to be able to pass on to their daughter one day. And she has put a lot of effort into her online presence - as frivolous as he sometimes finds it, it’s the thing she’s succeeded at the most, and if it’s something she wants to preserve he doesn’t want to fight her on it. But another year together means closer to eighteen months until he and Tim can present themselves as a couple. That’s not what Armie wants, and it’s more than he’s willing to ask of Timmy.   
  
“How about nine months? Nine months and we announce that we’ve been trying to work through our issues, no one is at fault but we’ve begun divorce proceedings, and three months later Tim and I step out together.”  
  
Now it’s Elizabeth’s turn to tense. She knows, of course she knows, exactly what’s waiting for him at the end of their marriage. _Light at the end of the tunnel,_ she thinks. But hearing him say it so directly, so easily, so matter of fact, is painful nonetheless. She understands that he’s trying. Trying to do right by both of them. Trying to keep things civil, and respect her wishes. But she already misses when she was his only priority, and allows herself a moment of bitterness (the first of many, she’s sure) while appreciating that he’s at least still thinking of her as well. 

She shifts directions abruptly, unable, or unwilling, to avoid the elephant in the room any longer. “What are you going to tell people? You’re gay? Bi? _Confused_? It doesn’t matter, love is love?” She’s not trying to get a rise out of him, but this matters to her. She feels like she’ll come across as the fool no matter what, but she’d like to know in what way, to what extent.

Armie looks at her helplessly. “I don’t know what I am. What label I should be wearing. The only thing I know, is that I’m his.”  
  
Elizabeth pauses, swallows thickly, eventually nods. “Nine months”, she agrees, struck by how the end of a whole life together has amounted to barely more than a business negotiation. “But please, ease into things with him publicly. No big declarations of love right away. No _couch jumping_ or anything.” She knows the second there’s an inkling this is true, it’s going to explode. Fans and the media alike have been salivating over the thought for years. There’s nothing to be done about it, except try to mitigate the damage.  
  
“Deal.” His face contorts suddenly. “Just to be clear, it’s nine months of us presenting a public front, keeping up appearances. But, we’re not like...we won’t be...” he stumbles over his words, _blushing_ for christ’s sake, until she finally takes pity on him.   
  
“Armie, I’m not going to spend the next nine months trying to fuck you and change your mind”, she declares, rolling her eyes as exaggeratedly as possible even as her lips quirk up in the beginnings of a beleaguered smirk. It feels absurd to be having this conversation with him - her marriage is over, her previously presumed totally straight husband is leaving her for _a man_ , they’re negotiating the details of how this will all be revealed - she’s sure she’s in a bit of shock, that this won’t all hit her with full force until later. Right now she shakes her head, the bare bones of a smile forming - because he’s not the only one who’s fallen out of love, he’s just the first one who fell back into it with someone else. 

Armie smiles in return, because if he ever wondered where his daughter got that spirit and sass from, it’s more than obvious. He smiles _because of_ his daughter and his son. Because they exist and they are perfect and that comes from the two of them, the love they’d shared once. Because this isn’t the way he thought or hoped it would go, this isn’t the story he promised her - certainly not the ending - but it’s their story and it was a good one while it lasted. He refuses to think of two beautiful children, a successful business, a re-imagined and burgeoning career, and a decade spent mostly happy as a failure. You can only predict so much, can only try for so long. People change. You hope that you’ll change together, in complementary ways, but it’s never a guarantee. Somewhere along the way they began to run parallel instead of perpendicular. And sometime around then he found the line that matched his. 

And there’s a part of him that’s sad that this is over. Not just for the kids, for the family unit that will forever be fractured now. But for him. There’s a comfort to being married, to being promised to someone, that settles him well. He likes the surety of the bond, knowing you’ve got someone on your side, someone by your side everywhere. Armie likes being part of a team, the feeling of knowing someone intimately, deeply, completely. Effortlessly.

He’ll get there with Tim, he believes that. Already feels a connection with him unlike anything he’s ever known. And he believes that they’re both serious about this, sure of it - he’d never have been able to take a step like this if he wasn’t. But there’s always an uncertainty to a new relationship, and for as long as they’ve loved each other, building a life together is still uncharted territory.

Things are going to be hard. The next nine months aren’t going to fly by, he’s aware of that. But he’s also aware of the fact that he gets to call his boy, his Timmy. He gets to tell him that it’s official and agreed to. That plans are in motion. That a year from now they’ll be happy, together, out in the open.   
  
He’s eager and proud to be able to give him this, this reassurance, this tangible proof. To reward his patience and his trust against the advice of the majority of his inner circle, most of whom thought that, at best, Armie was simply too weak willed to make a change this enormous even if he wanted to or, at worst, that Timmy was being utterly used by someone who never had any intention of blowing up their own life so spectacularly.   
  
Tim had never doubted. Had understood that you can’t just throw away the last ten years of your life, your family, without careful planning. Had believed him when he said there was love there, would always be love there, but that there was no longer attraction or passion. That pictures were staged for maximum appeal to those who wanted access to their personal lives, not borne out of desire.

Elizabeth’s sigh breaks him from his reverie. She stands, smooths out her blouse even though it’s just the two of them. Picture perfect at a moment’s notice, as always. Appearances taking top priority. “I’m going to,” she motions for the stairs, indicating that she’s heading to bed. “Are you...where will you…” she trails off and for the first time in what feels like ages, he sees her flounder. He vows to himself to bend to her when he can, when it makes sense, to make this process as seamless as possible. He truly believes they’re in the same place in their hearts, but he’s fully aware that he’s the one lighting the dynamite. Fully aware that, even if they don’t want each other anymore, he’s the one that wants someone else.

“I’ll take the guest room, is that okay? We’ll figure out the permanent details, but for tonight…guest room?” The guest room where, once upon a grueling shoot and pistachio shells and late night talks, Armie realized that, no, it wasn’t just Crema. Wasn’t just a magical set in a magical town. He’d love this kid anywhere. 

She nods, and he can see her shutting down, for the night at least. “Sleep well, hus-“, she catches herself a second too late, and he sees tears begin to form, unexpected to both of them. She takes a deep breath, squares her shoulders, and turns to him, another smile, this one smaller and sadder, on her still red lips. “Sleep well”, she tries again, voice husky with emotion she refuses to bear, in front of him at least.

He raises a hand as a goodnight greeting, pretending he didn’t notice what she’d almost said. He wants to tell her it’s okay, that they’ll all be okay, that this is genuinely the right and best move for them all, but he can’t think of a single thing to say to her that won’t sound condescending right now. “Night,” he whispers back.

It feels heartless that before she’s even out of his sight he’s aching to grab his phone, but he’s just taken the first step into a life where he no longer has to hide his deepest desires and he can’t wait another second to share that news with the person who inspired him to do so. He opens up the, by far, longest text thread on his phone, _TCH_ (the initials a bit of a pipe dream, but closer to reality than ever before) at the top. Begins a new message. “Tim,” it starts, “I’ve got some news.”

**Author's Note:**

> This mess was not necessary.


End file.
